


The Reach Of Understanding

by DictionaryWrites



Category: Marvel
Genre: Angst, Complicated Relationships, Post-Avengers (2012), Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-06-23 08:45:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15602658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: Loki stews as he waits to be brought back to Asgard, following his captivity in New York.





	The Reach Of Understanding

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: ❝ Where there is love, there is often also hate. They can exist side by side. ❞ + loki & thor?

It is Thor’s words of wisdom that often hurt most of all. Loki sits against the very edge of the wall in Avengers Tower, his wrists bound in cuffs that dampen his magic. Thanos’ hold had been broken upon him when the Hulk had driven him into the ground, the magic of the mindstone  shattered where it gathered about him, and yet even before he had regained his consciousness, his magic barely able to heal his cracked ribs and bruised organs before the cuffs had been slid onto his wrists.

This magic is clumsy in comparison, at the very least, not so complete in its stifling of his magic, and he at least feels it flow through him once more, no longer having to rely upon the meagre power of the sceptre to make his way, and a handful of illusions.

He feels slightly nauseated, as if he might soon be sick, and his eyes are closed, his head tilted to the side. He feigns sleep ( _although in truth, Loki hasn’t slept in years, perhaps in decades, beneath Thanos’ iron fist, and he wonders if he ever will again),_  although he feels the gazes of most of the Avengers on him when they pass him by. He is not in a holding cell, but it is not as if he has a desire to escape. 

When he feels Bruce Banner step closer, peering down at him, he cannot prevent himself from flinching, and he opens his eyes. Banner looks down at him, his lips twisted, and he very slowly drops into a crouch, so that he is on a level with Loki, whose shoulders are pressed right up against the wall, his spine stiff. Loki takes in a slow breath, his nostrils flaring, and Banner looks at him for a long few moments, his brown eyes serious. 

“I’m sorry,” he says. The guilt in his face and his voice are each genuine, but there’s a sort of hardness behind his eyes, and Loki suppresses the sudden urge to gag. 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Loki retorts. “Go–  _Go away_.”  Loki cannot help the reaction of his body: he recalls the pain, the shatter, the hard  _punch_  of his body against the ground and the strain in his spine and his hips and his bones, but worse had been the pain of the magic snapping, the threads coming right away from him and leaving him dazed and confused, his magic surging in his veins and burning his skin. For how many years had he been without magic, in the void Thanos had cast him into? For how many decades had he been starved of food, and water, and  _magic_? “Go away,” he repeats, a little louder, and Banner leans back upon his heels. He shifts his hand, just slightly, as if to reach out and touch Loki, and Loki flinches again, more bodily this time, thinking of a huge green hand gripping him,  _throwing_  him–

Banner hesitates. The hardness in his eyes softens into more guilt, and Loki grits his teeth together, staring him down. 

“It isn’t easy, is it?” Loki whispers. “To  _enjoy_  somebody’s fear of you? Did you think it would be, Doctor Banner? Did you think you might feel even fleeting triumph over me?” Banner’s gullet shifts, and Loki sees the apple of his throat bob as he swallows. “One triumphs in victory, Doctor Banner. But to triumph in subjugation? That is not the realm of good men doing their duty: that is the realm of despots, and monsters, and kings.”

“Which one are you?” Banner asks. “A king?” Loki laughs.

“You know which one I am, Banner,” Loki says softly. “You don’t need to flatter me simply because you fear your alterego.”

“Do you fear yours?” Banner asks. Slowly, he sinks onto his backside instead of leaning back on his heels, and he sits with his legs crossed, like a child. Loki feels distinctly vulnerable in his position, crammed into the corner, his knees drawn up tightly against his chest, his cuffed hands hidden between them. 

“Please,” Loki says softly. “Go away.”

“You don’t get to do that,” Banner says. “You don’t get to invade a  _planet_ , kill thousands of people, and then– And then get  _uncomfortable_  because somebody tries to talk to you.”

“That’s alright,” Loki says. “My discomfort won’t be here to bother you for long.” Banner frowns at him, his head tilting to the side, and he looks so  _confused_ , so distinctly perplexed– “Because of the execution.”

“What? We’re not gonna execute you,” Banner says.

“This isn’t exactly your jurisdiction, Doctor Banner,” Loki replies. “ _Asgard_ will execute me.” Horror shows in Banner’s face, genuine horror and distaste - these Midgardians, so  _twee_  are they. That he should be so upset at the thought of  _Loki_  being executed, of all people… 

“Pray, Bruce,” Thor says quietly. Banner jumps as if he has been caught stealing a pastry from the baking plate, and he glances up at Thor, his eyes widened, his mouth slackening in surprise. “Leave me with my brother, for but a few minutes.”

“You won’t really execute him, right?” Banner demands, immediately. The slightest bit of anger shows in his tone, and Loki feels something shift within his chest, a slight surprise. He is almost  _touched_ , that Banner should care so for a stranger he knows not, for a stranger that has laid waste to the city wherein he dwells… Idiot. 

“Bruce,” Thor says, his voice a little louder, closer to a command. “Leave us.” Banner presses his lips together, but then he moves to stand, walking slowly away and moving out into the corridors of Avengers Tower, and Loki looks at his brother. Thor stares down at him, his blue eyes shining with distant pain, and he asks, uncertainly, “You think that– Father won’t execute you.”

Loki turns his face away, his gaze upon the wall instead of upon Thor himself. “Go away,” he mutters. “I have committed my crimes, and I will take the punishment I have earned. And yet no crime in the scheme of my existence, Thor, has earned me the horrific sentence of your self-righteousness.”

“Must you hate me, brother?” Thor asks, brokenly. Loki sighs.

“Must this planet, Earth, revolve about its sun? Must it spin upon its axis? Must the seasons change, and the tides shift, and the wind blow?” Loki asks the questions softly, and yet it is as if he is bludgeoning Thor with the hilt of the blade - he feels its serrated teeth bite hard into his palms, and he closes his eyes, feeling the  _bleed_  within him. “I know my place, brother: ever and always, it is here, facing you.”

“Can’t we face the same way?” Thor asks, deceptively calm. “As once we did?”

“Even if I hate you?” Loki asks. “Even if I hate you, brother, you would want me at your side?” Thor slides forward, and Loki feels himself flinch again, but Thor just slides to sit beside him, so that each of them are shoulder to shoulder, Thor’s back against the wall. 

“Where there is love,” Thor murmurs delicately, “there is often also hate. They can exist side by side.” Loki, for the longest few moments, is quite frozen. Disgust burns within him like an ancient flame, and he clenches his hands tightly into fists. 

“You know not the nature of hate,” Loki whispers. 

“I can withstand your hatred, brother,” Thor murmurs, trying to set his hand upon Loki’s shoulder, and Loki scrambles away from him, clumsily shifting over the boards of the ground. He stands to his feet, shaking his hair out of his eyes, and he hates the loathing within him, hates–

Loki does gag, this time. He brings his cuffed fists to his mouth to prevent himself from vomiting, and he shudders in his place, staring down at the ground. In his periphery, he can see Thor, staring wide-eyed at him, still in his place against the wall. 

“Has it ever– Has it ever occurred to you, Thor, for once in your life, that while  _you_  might be able to withstand my hatred for you, that I cannot?”

“Brother,” Thor says, standing to his feet. “I could never hate–”

“This isn’t about you!” Loki snaps, and his voice rings with power, what little magic he has to hand surging in his veins, ringing in his throat and making his tongue change in his mouth, with all the shine and poison of a tongue of mercury. “I couldn’t care less whether you hate me or not!” It’s a lie, and it tastes like one, acrid in his mouth, but oh, how he aches. Why will Thor never understand? “Thor… I cannot  _stand_  the way that I hate you. I cannot bear it. You say that love and hate can exist side by side - I say that you are  _wrong_. How can I love you, Thor, as I am supposed to, when it is shadowed by this jealousy? By this anger, this fury, this  _hate_? How can I trust myself in your presence, when I feel such urges to hurt you?”

“But I can–”

“You can do nothing,” Loki says, damningly. “I hate you, and that hate has grown within me like a seed, bloomed and borne fruit like a poison tree. And I cannot  _stand_  to hate you, Thor. Because my hatred of you is not because of your charm, or goodness, or love! It is not of your hatred, of your arrogance, of your  _recklessness_. My hatred of you is… inescapable. Better for us both when Father swings his ax.” 

Thor stares at him, and he stands with his hands at his side, his lips parted. His eyes shine with tears, and Loki hates how he feels, hates how his heart feels clawed open and raw. He hates all that he has done, hates  _Thor_ … Hates Loki.

“Why do you hate me?” Thor asks. “What can I do, to– What have I done?”

“It doesn’t have to be anything you’ve done,” Loki mutters, and he sinks onto a low couch, facing the back cushions instead of Thor. He curls into a small ball, wishing he could cross his arms over his chest, but with the cuffs, it’s far beyond his capabilities. “It isn’t your fault. It isn’t a terrible thing  _you’ve_  done: it is merely the way things are.” 

“How can it be?” Thor demands, and he leans heavily over Loki, gripping his shoulder and forcing him to lie on his back, so that he looks up at Thor instead of at the sofa cushions. “Loki… Whatever it is, whatever so  _ails_  you, let me…”

“Please,” Loki whispers, and he hates how broken his voice is, hates how it cracks down the middle, how he nearly sobs. He sees Thor stare at him, sees his  _horror_. “Go away. If you  _love_  me, Thor– Just let me be.” Resigned, Thor stares down at him, and he lets out a long, slow sigh.

“I will let you be, brother,” Thor murmurs. “But I will not see you die.” Loki turns back to the sofa, and he is relieved beyond measure when Thor finally walks away. 

**Author's Note:**

> [Hit me up on Tumblr](http://dictionarywrites.tumblr.com/faq). Requests always open.


End file.
